Lillian on Life by Alison Jean Lester

Author:Alison Jean Lester
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

On Leaving in Order to Stay

Living with John was like that Robert Frost poem about whether the world will end in fire or in ice and which is worse. He was so cold sometimes. He would go for days without speaking. He never seemed to have trouble finding the words for his foreign policy column, but speaking to me was often beyond him. I thought this was deep. To stupid me, it was part of his elegance.

It’s so painful to be a disappointment when you’re trying your best all the time. I never came home from work and merely put my feet up. I never went out without dressing carefully. I stayed up until all hours to get the dishes clean after an evening. I ran all over town for birthday gifts for the children, and he’d say, “Why do you waste your time like that, Lillian? Don’t you have better things to do?” Men tell you they say things like this because they love you. So do mothers. That this doesn’t feel like love to you surprises them.

As does your infidelity.

It all started with tango music in a restaurant. It made me feel sexy, but our chat over dinner was incredibly banal. I tried to keep the energy up, but John was desultory. He was so intelligent, but this was a period during which he didn’t want to talk about work. The evening was odd from the start. The walls were green. The music writhed into my blood like a hot oiled snake. I looked at John’s neat hair, his shining cuff links, the beautiful mole at the corner of his mouth. The conversation was little better than gossip. I’m sure at some point I wondered deep down how long such a ridiculous dinner could possibly last. Then I heard a clattering of cutlery and felt the breeze as a large man rushed over to John from somewhere behind me. He made an effort to hide his face from me as he announced, “You are having dinner with the most, most beautiful woman in the world.” Then he left the restaurant, but I had recognized his hands, his hair. Laszlo. Laszlo was in London. I was in London. John was ice. When Laszlo put two and two together and called the London bureau, I was ready to be found. I agreed to meet him for tea in the afternoon.

The tables in the tea shop were tiny, and after he indented both my cheeks with his velvet lips and left my skin tingling from the swipe of surrounding stubble, we sat, and our long legs interlocked under the table. I scooted my chair back and crossed my legs, but he stayed right where he was for a long moment. Then he leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and said, “Oh my God, Lillian, your beautiful nostrils.” When a man says something like this, you either suddenly remember an important meeting or you stay where you are in the heat of his curly-fringed eyes and indulge the idea of allowing him to enjoy your body.

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